I have been interviewed and quoted many times but I rarely post the article as the interviewer/writer usually misses the big picture. Here is one that I can recommend that was in GQ Magazine recently. Here’s just the beginning and then the full article can be found at this link: https://www.gq.com/story/how-to-be-more-present
It’s easy to let things that have happened in the past or worries about the future turn your attention away from the present moment. There’s likely a lot on your mind right now at this exact moment; it’s like your brain has 20 tabs open. So what’s the secret to being more present? It starts with these tips from mindfulness experts.
The Vagus Nerve and meditation are intertwined. The Vagus Nerve roughly translated means “wandering nerve”. It travels from the brain stem down to the abdomen and connects with many major organs participating in many of our bodily functions such as breathing, digestion, heart rate and many more. It is intimately connected to the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic(automatic) nervous system and therefore plays a big role in regulating stress. The autonomic nervous system runs our bodies automatically without us having to participate. Functions such as heart rate are a function of the autonomic nervous system.
The autonomic nervous system has two branches, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. The sympathetic branch is responsible for putting us in fight or flight and the parasympathetic branch is responsible for taking us out of fight or flight and regulating our bodies when not involved with a fight or flight event.
Stress levels are at historic highs and one of the reasons for that is the phenomena of getting stuck in fight or flight. For a number of reasons our nervous systems are getting stuck in the sympathetic mode meaning that the changes that take place in our body/mind during fight or flight are not being resolved after the event happens. Consequently those changes, to varying degrees, stay with us for extended periods of time. This results in chronic stress which leads to a host of physical, mental and emotional symptoms.
Science has given us a number of tools whereby we can measure various bodily functions to determine stress levels. One of the most effective ways to measure these stress levels is by studying the Vagus Nerve stimulation. When the Vagus Nerve gets stimulated it influences the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system to come out of fight or flight thereby reducing stress. Here’s how that happens through meditation.
We know that meditation, particularly mindfulness meditation(full attention to the present moment) is effective in lowering stress. Mindfulness meditation is the most studied approach to meditation having over 2500 studies published worldwide with an average of 200 more per month being published. I consider it to be the hub of the meditation wheel in that it enhances all the other meditation approaches and can be a stand alone practice itself. These studies show that meditation can increase energy, reduce stress, slow breathing, decrease anxiety, reduce pain, increase blood flow and provide a sense of peace to name a few. When the Vagus Nerve receives the signals from these meditation effects it sends a message to the brain that all is well, there is no danger and there is no need to be in fight or flight. The brain then sends the message to the autonomic nervous system which stimulates the parasympathetic branch to come out of fight or flight and regulate the systems into balance. This is an example of the Vagus Nerve and the brain working together. The brain can send messages to the body and the body to the brain through the Vagus Nerve.
It is interesting to note that a function of the body previously thought to run automatically can in fact be influenced consciously through meditation. This is very important and gives us insight into the possibility of many ways that we can consciously participate in our health and well being. This is yet another demonstration of the mind/body connection and how our thoughts, emotions and physical sensations are interconnected and how meditation can assist in the smooth running of the system.
I’m not sure if boredom and restlessness have ever been studied together but two of the first things I encountered when I started practicing mindfulness were boredom and restlessness and I always noticed them together. It was an interesting observation as I can’t say I noticed either very much before I started practicing. Since I noticed it in myself I have become aware of just how prevalent these two things are in people. With restlessness I have come to be able to read body language to the point where I notice all the little movements associated with it. The big one is the leg that constantly is moving up and down while sitting (restless leg syndrome). I become aware of someone’s boredom through conversation and noticing that they have a hard time focusing. We see a lot of boredom and restlessness with ADD and ADHD and we know how prevalent that is. So where is this coming from? In the world of stress when we have a situation of being stuck in fight or flight and the stress hormones continue to rage unabated we have the phenomenon of getting addicted to our own adrenaline. This is very similar to any drug stimulant addiction but perhaps worse as most people don’t realize the connection and it becomes hard to address. Years of research have taught us the ramifications of being stuck in fight or flight on our adrenal glands. There is an enormous amount of stress on them and sometimes they just shut down. When that happens there is a domino effect and we are also deprived of the adrenaline that we get so used to. At that point we actually go into withdrawal and experience a host of symptoms, two of which are boredom and restlessness. The problem gets compounded when we try to reproduce the adrenaline with destructive behaviors and substances. It’s like an addict trying to get their fix so they can “relax”. When we practice mindfulness we gradually come out of fight or flight and when we do there is a gradual decreasing of adrenaline and the other stress hormones. When that happens we can experience the same withdrawal that a drug addict experiences. Two of those experiences are restlessness and boredom. As the body normalizes through mindfulness practice and we slowly get used to not having our adrenaline fix the boredom and restlessness go away. This is exactly what I experienced when I was coming out of fight or flight through my mindfulness practice. It took awhile but eventually my restlessness and boredom disappeared. The restlessness was replaced by a sense of calm and stillness. A sense of curiosity, fun and adventure replaced the boredom.
Perhaps my first experience of mindfulness happened in sports. While growing up I couldn’t get enough of sports and would play 8 hours a day if I could. It didn’t matter what sport….whatever was in season was good enough for me. As I got older I focused more on tennis, baseball and basketball. As my skills deepened I started having what we call today “zone or flow” experiences from time to time. I would have laser focus and an ease of performance that was remarkable to me and it wasn’t until I started practicing mindfulness that I realized that what I was experiencing was in fact the present moment experience talked about by practitioners of mindfulness. Up until then I wasn’t able to duplicate my “zone/flow” experiences at will while playing sports but once I started practicing mindfulness I was able to sustain the flow consistently in sports and out of sports. We now know through countless studies of mindfulness and sports what exactly is going on in the mind/body connection while experiencing the peak performance/flow/zone. Athletes all over the world are incorporating mindfulness into their training regimen in order to give them an additional edge in competition. It is also starting to dawn on many of these athletes that if they could sustain the experience outside of sports it would greatly enhance their everyday lives.
Sports has become such a powerful metaphor for life nowadays that we are putting everything athletic under the microscope and trying to discover what makes an elite athlete tick. There are of course many things that make an elite athlete tick and many of those things are not accessible to everyone. What is accessible to everyone is the mind/body integration that produces the present moment experience…..the practice of mindfulness. There is a realization that all those peak qualities have a far reaching benefit that extends way beyond sports. It extends into every aspect of our lives. Qualities such as inner and outer teamwork (mind/body coordination) , enhanced focus, attention, intuition and reduced physical, emotional and mental stress are qualities that we can use everywhere and in every situation. So whether you are LeBron James looking to express your inner Bill Gates or Bill Gates looking to express your inner LeBron James there is now a path that allows you to meet in the middle. It is called mindfulness and it deposits you square into the present moment.
It is impossible to know precisely, but millions of people worldwide identify themselves with belief systems in which reincarnation plays a part. This includes over 300 million Buddhists, 800 million Hindus, at least one million adherents of New Age religions, and several million others, as well as many whose beliefs are held privately. Overall, it is reasonable to estimate that about a quarter of the world’s population believes in reincarnation in some form. That’s a lot of people! It’s also a lot of time, energy and attention used to figure out how it all fits into our present day lives. Other than mindfulness’ connection with other spiritual traditions that believe in reincarnation, I can’t find any specific references to how mindfulness relates to it so I will proceed to tell you what mindfulness has taught me in relationship to the concept of reincarnation. Firstly, I have come to learn that the past is always present. It is expressed in every little detail of our lives even though we may not be able to point to the exact connection. Since that is my reality then I would find the logic to connect it to everything in the past, even a hypothetical concept of reincarnation. If the past of this life is always present, then everything in the past is present too, including past lives. If we are interested in our past the best way to access it is by noticing the present moment, not necessarily to learn the specific details but to gain the understanding and the ability to integrate it all.
Secondly, the concept of interconnectedness, which is very real and palpable to me renders the whole idea of separate lives irrelevant….past or present. Empathy is the beginning stage of being able to share the experiences of others in a very real way and on many levels. As empathy matures and is joined by an ability to stay anchored in the present moment, there is an opening of ones ability to explore other’s experiences past or present without losing the center of oneself. In a sense it is perhaps the real definition of time travel. Since the past is always accessible to the present, once we have mastered the present we have mastered and gained access to the past and can explore it on many levels. That being said…it is far more important to me to simply attend to this present moment and explore everything as it is right now. The whole concept of the past has lost it’s appeal to me and my curiosity is centered in the present moment. So now that we have addressed the past and present, how about the future…..ahhh….a subject for another time…perhaps in the future……..
The good news about MBSR training is that it is simple to understand. The knowledge that practicing present moment awareness reverses the stress cycle by counteracting the disconnect coping mechanism caused by the fight or flight experience makes sense and is easy to grasp quickly. The other news is that practicing mindfulness meditation and mindfulness in everyday life takes a fair level of commitment and determination.
Our culture is a high adrenaline, multi tasking experience. From an early age we are bombarded with stimuli that tear down our ability to focus and be in the present moment. The resulting strain on our healthcare system attests to the inherent problems of living life in the fast lane. Yet to go against the “norm” in our culture is to create other problems where we feel like we don’t belong and a sense of alienation creeps into our lives. To slow down and focus on the present moment is like swimming against the current and creates its own stress.
So, we have to ask ourselves if it is worth the discipline of practicing MBSR training since it is likely to be a permanent requirement of our new lifestyle as long as we live in a culture like ours. Even if we don’t there are many reasons to practice mindfulness once a baseline norm is reached and peak performance mode appears as a permanent possibility. An important realization is that mindfulness gets easier the more you practice. After awhile it simply becomes the way you are and practice becomes easy and fun. Considering the rewards it seems obvious to me that the commitment is worth making. MBSR Scottsdale serves the needs of the MBSR Phoenix community and is available to all who are willing to make the commitment.
When I started my mindfulness meditation practice 45 years ago one of the first things I came into contact with was my sense of humor. I had lost touch of that sense through my tumultuous adolescent years and was happy to regain the perspective of humor. It all came home to roost one day when I was watching Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream starring Mickey Rooney as Puck. Mickey Rooney died last week so perhaps that is why my return to humor is in the forefront of my awareness. Puck’s famous line of “What fools these mortals be” struck a chord with me and began to crystallize the essence of my world view. I realized that although things seemed so serious on many levels that underneath it all is that sense of humor. I found myself experiencing events and thinking how ridiculous it all is. At the same time life is meant to be played out in earnest. Another Shakespeare quote came to be my mantra..”All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”. It would be easy to let humor sink to the level of cynicism and we all see that unfolding daily in many kinds of humor. There is humor to suit every emotion and perspective and the comedians of the day give plenty of opportunity to experience it.
So how does my mindfulness practice influence my sense of humor. I realized a long time ago that a lot of humor comes from pain and suffering and many comics will be the first to admit that unhappy experiences drive their comedy. It’s like the Blues musicians always say..”you have to suffer to sing the Blues”. In many many cases that is true with comedy. If you look at the 7 stages of grief you will recognize the starting point for much of our comedy. At the core of pain, suffering, grief, depression, anxiety etc. is fear. During my adolescent years I experienced all of these emotions with fear being the most palpable. It was when I embraced my mindfulness practice that the fear gradually went away. For me fear took the form of fear of dying and when I dealt with that all the other “negative” emotions went away by themselves. It is when the fear left me that I was able to rediscover my sense of humor and sense of the ridiculous without descending into cynicism and all the related fear based emotions. Coming into the present moment allowed that sense of humor to flower and at the same time embrace the love, compassion, kindness and interconnectedness of our mortal foolishness.
The current definition of mindfulness is the ability to pay attention moment by moment without judgment on purpose. This definition is the summary/end result of a number of processes that go on behind the scenes. Mindfulness has been the subject of over 1800 studies over the past 30 years and central to all of these studies is the importance of attention to the present moment. Through research and the experience of thousands of people over at least 2500 years we have come to realize that mindfulness is key to bringing our bodies/lives into balance. In a world suffering from an epidemic of ADD and ADHD it is particularly important to use mindfulness as a way of resolving this and many other issues.
Let’s take a look at the broader relationship of attention to who we are. I’m going to step out of the world of research and discuss what my personal experiences have been regarding this broader view. The world of experience used to be all we had until the scientific revolution. Science has been a valuable tool for many things and with the breakthroughs in quantum research it would not surprise me if we could eventually measure what has thought to have been unmeasurable.
To me, attention is the third process and perhaps the most critical in how we experience things and get things done. The sequence is: being, awareness, attention, creativity/imagination, intention, and action/expression. Most of as can agree that being is a given as a first principle although I understand there are some who are not sure that they even exist. These people notwithstanding, we would next get to pure awareness. After awareness would come the all important attention to the present moment. I see being as the ocean, awareness as a boat and attention as the rudder. We all know what happens to a boat in the ocean without a rudder. Apply that to your life and the realization of the importance of present moment attention becomes clear. The effectiveness of creativity/imagination, intention, and action/expression is directly related to the rudder of attention. Without that rudder it’s easy to see how the rest can go astray. The rudder of mindfulness is the element that creates the necessary symmetry to allow all these things to line up and flow naturally together with a sense of ease. When this happens there is cooperation with the energy that is everywhere and the expression of “being in the flow” comes to life.
Mindfulness and compassion have been historically linked for a long time. Wikipedia defines compassion as: “Compassion is the feeling of empathy for others. Compassion is the emotion that we feel in response to the suffering of others that motivates a desire to help.[1][2]Compassion is often regarded as having an emotional aspect to it, though when based on cerebral notions such as fairness, justice and interdependence, it may be considered rational in nature and its application understood as an activity based on sound judgment. There is also an aspect of compassion which regards a quantitative dimension, such that individual’s compassion is often given a property of “depth,” “vigour,” or “passion.” The etymology of “compassion” is Latin, meaning “co-suffering.” More involved than simple empathy, compassion commonly gives rise to an active desire to alleviate another’s suffering.
For fun, let’s take a look at the “chicken or egg” relationship between mindfulness and compassion. There are those who would say that mindfulness gives rise to compassion and those who would say the reverse. To make this discussion even more fun I will take the side of the egg as being first. There are many reasons for this but in an effort to keep this blog simple I will say that the shape of an egg is more primal and from a cosmological/mathematical/quantum standpoint would be easier to spring from the “nothingness of black space” than a chicken.
From here I will jump to my conclusion in order to stay true to simplicity. My experience has been that compassion can gradually lead to mindfulness, but that mindfulness always leads to compassion. The key ingredient is actually mentioned in the Wikipedia definition, “interdependence”. My experience with mindfulness has been that the deeper I go into the present moment, the more obvious it is that everything is interconnected and interdependent to the point of the realization of the feeling of oneness with all. It’s easy to see how the flow of everything is moving together. As that realization/feeling matures and unfolds it becomes natural to have compassion with/for everyone, everything and of course, oneself. Now that we have had our fun, we can freely admit that the answer to this question of what came first really doesn’t matter…..as the chicken and the egg discovered long ago!
Food/Eating has always been central to the human experience because of it’s obvious relationship to survival. Today, food/eating plays a much larger role and in fact has become not just a science but an art as well. In becoming such a focal point in our culture it gives us an opportunity to not only enjoy it in all it’s diversity but to suffer with it as well. Like all things in life, whether we enjoy or suffer through our experiences is highly influenced by our relationship to them.
Mindfulness directly address this root cause by allowing us to reconnect, come out of fight or flight and put the stress cycle and fear of survival behind us. At this point we are free to see food as it really is….something that nourishes us and sustains life. As we reconnect to our bodies and our dulled senses become enlivened, we are also in for the treat of being able to experience food/eating in a deeper more enjoyable way. If we pay attention mindfully to our food/eating our bodies will tell us what we need to know about about quantity, quality and how to enjoy.
In the practice of mindfulness the main theme is our relationship to the present moment via our connection to our bodies, minds, breath and emotions. Because stress plays such a large role in our lives, and since stress is dictated by our relationship to our experiences, it makes perfect sense that the practice of mindfulness which brings balance into our lives could play a pivotal role in how we experience food and eating.
The big issue with stress is coping by disconnecting from ourselves and the present moment and getting stuck in the stress cycle for extended periods of time(think years). That fight or flight experience has one major function….survival. If we are stuck in survival mode then our relationship to everything will be through the lens of survival/fear including our relationship to food/eating. We will magnify it’s importance as a strategy for survival and grasp onto it for all we are worth. We’ll grasp onto it and won’t be able to get enough of it to ease our fears of survival because the root cause of being stuck in fight or flight hasn’t been addressed. It will also result in other forms of food/eating dysfunction.
